There exists a growing popularity in instant messaging services. Instant messaging is a type of communication using the World Wide Web and/or the Internet to create a group to which members of the group utilize a computing device to communicate with each other via private chat transactions. Service providers typically aim to grow usage of the instant messaging services while users are increasingly demanding a more reliable service.
In instant messaging and other real-time communications services, presence is a vital feature. Presence information can include data on the users such as connectivity details for user and the current availability of users to communicate with other available users. If an instant messaging user goes offline, enters a do not disturb state, etc., then the other instant messaging users need to know about the user's change in presence and that the user is unavailable for instant messaging. Presence engines provide this notification. Typically, a user establishes a list of users, sometimes referred to as a contact list, that the user may choose to have a chat transaction utilizing a computing device. Presence is utilized to inform the user regarding whether members of the user's contact list are available to communicate with the user. Presence is also utilized to indicate changes in status of the user to the members of the contact list.
Currently, users are associated with separate presence engines, i.e., user A will be associated with presence engine A, user B with presence engine B, user C with presence engine C, etc. In the existing environment, if user A is instant messaging and decides to go into a do not disturb state, then presence engine A sends an update to presence engine B, presence engine C, etc., such that every presence engine is updated to reflect user A's new presence status. At the same time, presence engine B and presence engine C (and others) are sending presence updates to other presence engines regarding presence changes for instant messaging users connected to them. As a result, a large number of presence change updates are continuously sent to presence engines.
Current implementations of instant messaging services have fundamental limits on scalability and reliability. Generally the limitations are due to the existing methods and configurations for providing presence information about users of the service. Traditional instant messaging systems utilize platforms that are configured such that presence information about each user is replicated in each processing device. This configuration requires that each time a user's presence changes, every user on the system receives notification of the presence change. Thus, a presence change notification is sent to every user, even users that are not a part of the contact list of the user whose presence has changed. Providing continuous updates to users regarding presence changes is inefficient, and is not easily scalable because the more presence engines involved, the more presence updates that need to be sent and received. Further, the ability to provide a reliable 7×24 hour service is limited since if presence information regarding a user is lost, each user on the system has to receive notification of the presence change for that user.
Thus, a heretofore-unaddressed need exists for a solution that addresses the aforementioned deficiencies and inadequacies.